IT is ten years since the sensational trial which finally closed the case on the most sickening murders of the 20th Century.

IT is ten years since the sensational trial which finally closed the case on the most sickening murders of the 20th Century.

Fred West and his despicable wife Rose had conspired to commit a chain of gruesome killings and rapes.

The mutilated bodies of 12 young women - including their own daughter Heather - were found buried beneath 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester.

On New Year's Day 1995, Fred West cheated justice by hanging himself in his cell at Winson Green Prison, Birmingham as he awaited trial.

But in November 1995 Rose West was jailed for life at Winchester Crown Court on ten counts of murder. She is still behind bars in Bronzefield prison in Middlesex.

But beyond the victims of their murderous crimes, there were many others who suffered at the hands of the Wests. And for them, the painful, turbulent nightmare continues...

THE HOUSE

THE House of Horrors was eventually demolished in October 1996.

There were calls for a memorial garden to be built on the spot, but after fears were expressed that it would be turned into a macabre shrine, Gloucester City Council decided on a simple and unassuming landscaped footpath.

THE SIGN

THE notorious 25 Cromwell Street sign, wrought in whitewashed iron, was taken away and destroyed at RAF Quedgeley to foil morbid members of the public.

Markus Grodentz of Gloucester City Council says: "After talking to the police, we were concerned the sign could be stolen by a ghoulish trophy hunter."

THE TWO WHO GOT AWAY

IN 1972 the Wests hired Caroline Roberts - then Owens - as a nanny after picking her up as a hitchhiker.

She was later abducted, stripped, gagged and raped by the couple - but they allowed her to leave the house alive.

Now 49, she says: "The attack shattered my life and it's taken me years to put it back together again. At the time I was afraid to give evidence in case they made it look like I was to blame."

She could not face pursuing charges of rape and Fred and Rose were convicted of actual bodily harm and indecent assault. Their punishment was a £50 fine each.

Now Caroline works as a drugs and alcohol counsellor and lives in Cinderford, Gloucs, with her electrician husband Ian and their kids Shannon, 11, and eight-year-old Liam.

"I suffered from low self-esteem and I tried to kill myself with a tranquilliser overdose.

"But my therapy was writing about my experience. I recently wrote a book about what I've been through, The Lost Girl, and I'm a different person now I've got it all out of my system.

"I left school with no exams but ironically my awful experiences gave me the perfect qualifications to help others, as a counsellor," she says.

The other victim who got away is known only as Miss A.

She was subjected to a violent sexual assault by the Wests when she ran away from home at the age of 15.

She was let go and returned to the house with petrol intending to set fire to the place as an act of revenge - but at the last moment lost her nerve.

She attempted suicide in 1983 and was admitted to hospital suffering from depression six years later. She later took refuge from her first husband in a battered wives' home.

THE NEIGHBOURS

ERNEST and Olive Miles believe they are the last people left on Cromwell Street who knew the Wests. They also met victim Shirley Robinson, whose remains were found in the garden of No.25.

Ernest, 89, and Olive, 86, moved into their house a few doors away from the Wests, on the corner of the street, in 1946.

"Fred always seemed like a nasty piece of work to me," recalls Ernest. "But I was amazed when it turned out that Rose had been killing these women, too.

"Everyone on this street wants to forget about it but it's impossible. We still get people visiting and taking photos of the street sign.

"The only time Fred ever spoke to me was in anger, when I found him pushing my car with his van, bumper to bumper.

"I came out to complain and he gave me a load of foul-mouthed abuse."

Olive adds: "One day, Mrs West passed by with a young, pregnant woman who she said was lodging at her house. Later, she said the girl had her baby and had left the house.

"I realised afterwards that poor woman was one of her victims."

THE LAWYERS

HOWARD Ogden represented Fred West for five months but was fired by him in August 1994. He was accused, and later cleared, of trying to make money from the killer's life story but was still suspended for a year for bringing the profession into disrepute.

Divorced dog enthusiast Howard, 42, is now semi-retired, lives in Gloucester and is a judge at dog competitions.

"That case changed my life," he says. "I contracted a rare form of leukaemia during it, as a result of the stress. I've since had special chemotherapy treatment and been given the all-clear.

"Seeing that horrible evidence has a big effect. I still get terrible nightmares and awful flashbacks. If I read a newspaper headline which contains the word West, I still shudder."

Leo Goatley, 50, represented Rose West at her trial. He is still a solicitor and lives in Gloucester with wife Catherine, 47.

"I finished acting for Rose a year ago, when she decided to abandon an appeal against the length of her sentence.

"I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been haunted by the photos of victims.

"It was like something from a horror film, looking at pictures of skulls with plastic tubes coming from the mouth. The tubes apparently allowed the victims survive in some minimal way...

"My wife said that I could be pretty obnoxious and difficult to live during the case, and now there are times I can't bear to watch TV after the watershed when there's blood and gore in films."

THE BEREAVED BROTHER

COULD Mary Bastholm have been another victim?

It's a question that has haunted her brother Peter ever since she disappeared at the age of 15 - last seen at a Gloucester bus stop in January 1968.

He says: "I'm living a life sentence now. I'm pretty sure West murdered my sister but her body has never been found.

"She worked at a cafe frequented by Fred, and his son Stephen said that his father had confessed to murdering her before he killed himself. I had got used to that feeling of loss as the years went by.

"I still have this burning anger because Fred killed himself before revealing what he"d done to my sister. Now I'll never be able to grieve for her."

THE DETECTIVE

DETECTIVE Superintendent John Bennett led the murder inquiry.

Mr Bennett, 59, won the Queen's Police Medal in 1996 for his work on the case and retired two years later after 34 years service.

He has spent the last two years writing a book about the investigation which will be published next month.

He says: "It was cathartic to write the book, but I did it more out of wanting to make sure that these things are put to rest in some way. It was not a form of therapy, but more closing the door on the whole thing.

"I just think that in the wake of it all, the true effort of the police and the many agencies involved got lost within all of the hype surrounding the news reports."

It was an unprecedented and unforgettable case, he says. "In the scope of things, there hasn't been anything else like it."

THE WEST CHILDREN

ANNE-MARIE DAVIES: Fred's daughter was raped and beaten as a child by her dad.

As an adult, depressed and tormented by memories of her childhood, she attempted suicide in 1999 by throwing herself into the water from a bridge in Gloucester but was rescued.

Now Anne-Marie, 41, works at a supermarket and, after divorcing her pub landlord husband Chris, lives with partner Phil and her two teenage children in Gloucester.

Phil says: "Life has been a nightmare for Anne-Marie, because she keeps reliving the trauma.

"What she's been through is unimaginably hard for anyone to cope with, but I'm so proud of her. It's a heavy burden, but she's just trying to lead an ordinary life now. With me and the kids supporting her, I think she can see a light at the end of the tunnel."

STEPHEN WEST: Fred and Rose's son was beaten as a child and unwittingly made to dig his sister

Heather's grave in the back garden. In January 2002, he too attempted suicide. In a chilling echo of his father's death, he tried to hang himself but survived when the rope snapped.

In December 2004 Stephen, 32, was jailed for nine months for having sex with a girl of 14. He's now out of jail and living in Stroud, Gloucester.

Stephen has admitted: "There's a bit of my dad in me." His barrister Stephen Mooney tried to explain his client's behaviour, saying: "He had one of the most traumatic and distressing childhoods one can imagine and what happened affected his emotional development.

"Anyone who has suffered like him has a tendency to remain emotionally less well-developed for his age."

MAE WEST: Fred and Rose's daughter was molested by her dad from the age of 12 but escaped when she was 16. Mae, now 32, stayed in Gloucester after her father's suicide. Incredibly, she forgave Fred, saying: "Despite everything, I still love him". With Stephen, she wrote a book about life in Cromwell Street, but is now attempting to start a new life - with a new identity. She had plastic surgery to remove a birthmark from her face and had her hair dyed and straightened.

Now with an older partner, Mae has a child from an earlier relationship and has taken the child's father's name.

Caroline Roberts, the West's nanny and a victim herself, says: "It's one thing to be a victim, but being saddled with the notorious West name made it doubly hard for the West's kids.

"That name was holding her back, a constant reminder of her terrible childhood."

The five youngest members of the West family were taken into care by the local authority after a sexual abuse case against their parents in 1992.

Tara, 27, has two children and has gone back to Gloucester, as have Louise, 26, and the Wests' only other son, Barry, 25.

Rosemary junior, 23, and Lucyanna, 22, are building new lives in the south of England.